What does "antimacassar" mean?

A cover for the back or arms of a chair or sofa.

What is a synonym for "antimacassar"?

Common synonyms include: canopy, cover.

Pronounced //ˌæn.tɪ.məˈkæs.ə//.

//ˌæn.tɪ.məˈkæs.ə// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A cover for the back or arms of a chair or sofa.
"She was particularly fond of animals, and, besides her canary, whose cage hung on a nail in the massive wall of the keep by day, to the great annoyance of prisoners who relished an after-dinner nap, and was shrouded in an antimacassar on the parlour table at night, she kept several piebald mice and a restless revolving squirrel."
2
a piece of ornamented cloth that protects the back of a chair from hair oils wordnet

"A moment later he and I were back in the front room, where the impassive lady was still quietly working away at her antimacassar."

From anti- + macassar. Antimacassars were originally used to protect upholstery from being soiled by macassar oil in the sitter's hair.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.